


A Ghost At Most

by DefaltManifesto



Series: 30 Day Song Lyric Challenge [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drunkenness, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 10:03:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12885516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefaltManifesto/pseuds/DefaltManifesto
Summary: On the anniversary of Ismaire's death, Joshua loses himself every year.





	A Ghost At Most

**Author's Note:**

> First part of a 30-day challenge I'm doing with a friend. We each picked 30 lyrics from 30 songs and gave each other our lists and now we have to write a fic based on the lyrics picked for us. This one is based around the following lyric: 
> 
> Holy by PRVIS - "Cause your a ghost at most/a set of empty bones/searching for anything and everything to make you feel whole"
> 
> This one is sad. Other ones are happier. But this one is sad.

[The tumblr](http://defaltmanifesto.tumblr.com)

 

Joshua isn’t a drinker. Well, not usually.

The anniversary of Ismaire’s murder is an exception in a lot of ways. Jehanna’s castle is subdued. The maids and butlers step softly through the corridors and stay far away from the King’s wing. Joshua sits in the study and knocks back drink after drink and tries to silence the quiet voice that reaches a roar on this day. The voice that tells him it’s his fault she’s dead. If he’d stayed, protected her, fought-

“What do you think you could have done?”

Joshua’s breath catches and he looks up from where he’s settled in the corner of the study on the floor, bottle in hand. Ismaire stares down at him, her hands held in front of her. Her eyes are stern, the way they never had been when she was alive and looked at him with such warmth even when he messed up.

“You think you could have stopped Carlyle’s betrayal? Stood up to Caellach?”

“I killed them both,” he says.

“Not soon enough,” she says, crouching before him. “Always a step too late…”

A slim hand reaches out and tucks his hair back behind his ear and he flinches, head smacking against the bookshelf behind him and for a moment his vision clears and he knows there’s nothing there but then Ismaire is back in front of him with a look of disappointment in her eyes. He squeezes them shut, unable to look at her.

“And if you’d stayed? Why, Carlyle would’ve killed you first,” she says. “I know he was teaching you how to use a sword but he’d never willingly let another man surpass him in skill if he could help it. Too weak-willed…”

“He loved you,” Joshua says. "The dark god manipulated him-"

"Yes, and you loved me too and look where that got me?” Ismaire sighs and he hears a rustle of fabric as she stands again. “Men loving me has done nothing. You all end up being failures in the end.”

Joshua draws his knees up tight to his chest, arms wrapping tight around them as he buries his face against his knees. “I would’ve done anything to save you. I blame myself every day for not being here.”

“If you had been here, you wouldn’t have been strong enough to stop them,” she says. “At least out there you learned some skills to back up your mouth, even if you let your pride keep you from returning soon enough to be of any use.”

“That’s not fair,” Joshua mumbles into his knees.

“No?” A hand twists in his hair, yanking his head back and he can’t help the strangled noise he makes when he meets Ismaire’s gaze as she stares down at him with cruelty sparking in the depths of her eyes. “Then tell me what’s fair, my sweet boy. Do you want me to tell you it’s okay that I’m dead? That it’s okay that you were selfish and ran off because you felt neglected and unloved?”

“Please…” He doesn’t even know what he’s begging for. They’re the words he wants to hear but the disparaging tone she delivers them in makes him wish he were deaf.

“You’re pathetic. But I suppose it’s my fault for not raising you right.”

She releases her grip on his hair and he curls in on himself again, too frazzled to be ashamed as he starts to cry. For a long while, that’s the only sound he hears. It fills the room and his head and his chest. By the time his eyes burn from how dry they are, Ismaire is long gone, disappearing to wherever it was she’d come from whether it was his mind or wherever she’d gone when she’d died.

“Oh Joshua,” a voice says.     

He looks up and there across the study is Gerik. He leans against the door, arms folded across his chest and when Joshua meets his eyes, he fears the disappointment he’ll see there. That’s not what he finds though. Instead, there’s just the kind and gentle warmth Gerik has always looked at him with.

“How’d you get in?” he croaks, pushing himself upright and knocking a few books off in the process.

“I was just in the area,” Gerik says. “Nobody seemed overly inclined to stop me from coming back here.”

“Now’s not a good time,” he says as he gathers as much of his composure as he can.

“I think now is the best time for me to be here,” Gerik says, walking towards him. “I know today is pretty hard but this is…Joshua, you need help.”

Joshua doesn’t even know how to respond to that, so instead he lets Gerik tug him forward and then into…a hug?

“C’mon,” Gerik says. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Tethys is performing down in the town. I’m sure she’d love to see you.”

Joshua nods into his neck. “Please…”

He doesn’t expect his plea to be answered. Gerik lifts his head up and presses a delicate kiss to his forehead. When he meets Gerik’s eyes again he thinks maybe it will be.


End file.
